Master Lu
by Nan Ma
Summary: Lu Meng feels guilty for entering a sexual and romantic relationship with his pupil Lu Xun. By Lin and Adeline. Lu MengxLu Xun.


He isn't proud of it.

Foremost, he feels guilt for abusing his relationship with his student. He knows the boy is vulnerable and helpless; the boy is utterly defenseless against his own thoughts and feelings.

He can count the ways he has taken advantage of the boy.

First, he is the teacher and mentor. He is Master Lu. The boy looks up to him and trusts what he does and says and thinks. To the boy, he is the always-right mentor, for whatever he does, he is the Good Example for the boy. The boy trusts him to be the voice to reason, to have what is best for everyone in mind. The boy trusts him to be the fair and righteous judge, to know right from wrong.

Second, he is the cherished idol. He is the scruffy saint without a wrong. He is the sinless one without a step away from the right path. He is the epitome of what man should be. His actions and words are wise and honorable. Surely he does not do anything bad.

Third, the boy is an orphan. He knows that the boy looks to him as a father figure, even though he does to the boy what no father would even consider. The boy has always had a hole in his life, one that aches whenever he realizes that he never even knew his father before becoming an orphan. The boy became close to him and took him to fill that hole. Now he is the father, who surely would only want the best for the son, who would protect his son.

Fourth, the boy is innocent. The boy has never been on the streets where children his own age hawk their own bodies for coins. The boy has seen the painted, perfumed concubines of other men but has never thought about their true occupation. The boy has not seen what he has, back in poverty, when more powerful men came and left the boys of one household laying on the ground, legs spread apart, crying and moaning from the pain, and those men were never caught. The boy has never heard of seduction or rape or abuse, nor ever dreamed that it could happen to him.

Fifth, the boy loves him.

He feels guilt and remorse, but he asks you, do not accuse him, for he does not think you can empathize. He wants you to know that what he does is not easy. Easy is taking a concubine, one of the many painted beautiful boys available for perusal and sale. Easy is taking up one of those boys into his house, taking his pleasure, and then taking his leave, until the next time he has desire. Easy is taking up with a body of flesh to which he has no connection beyond simple, shallow urges, so that when it is inconvenient, he can put that body out of sight and out of mind.

Difficult is caring. Difficult is waking up with his own student, his own ward, his own protégé. Difficult is considering and loving the boy's own needs and desires and feeling that he is putting his own before the good of the boy. Difficult is feeling the sheer shame of it.

But truly, the boy is one of the most desirable little creatures he has ever seen. The boy's body is slender and small; his limbs are long and his joints are delicate. His fingers are tapered and fragile like silk threads, and his feet are tiny, well formed, and very nice to hold. His skin is as soft and flimsy as dust and as translucent and pale as ice. But it is the boy's face that is most arousing to him. His face is the face of a young boy, with its soft, round shape and blemish-free surface, all framed by soft dark hair. His eyes are large, luminous, and dark, like water at dawn, and his eyelashes are thick and long like a baby's. His nose is small and his lips are soft, red, and tiny, like a doll's. In fact, the boy looks so much like a baby doll. He loves to kiss the boy's skin, to smell the boy's sweet baby fragrance. He loves to feel the boy's bare weight on him. He loves to be near the boy.

He remembers all too well the first time he gave in to his immoral wants. The boy had come to his tent just as usual, for studies. He had looked up, moaned inwardly, and remained kneeling before his maps to hide the growing spot of wetness and hardness on his pants. What, he had asked. Nothing, the boy had replied, then had gotten on his hands and knees in front of him. I feel strange, Master Lu, can you tell me what it means? He had asked the boy to explain. The boy had pushed forward, pulling off layers of robes until they were both rolling about in the skin, touching and panting. At the climax of the night, there had been one shove, one shriek of pain, and then nothing but sheer bliss pounding at his temples until he had woken up the next morning.

He had thought that it would have been a relief, a resolution to his previous guilts and sinful remorse about his lust for the boy. He had thought that it would have been a conclusion to his troubles. In the morning, he woke up with the boy stretched naked across his body and realized with a sudden sickening, falling feeling that their wild night had only made things worse. The moment the boy had stirred, he had raised a cry of despair and shaken the boy awake. Heavens. Gods. Immortals. Oh, I am sorry! What have I done? Oh no, what have I done, I am so sorry!

The boy does not imagine his shame. The boy only slowly opens his eyes and rubs flower-petal lips to the stubble on his face. Good morning, Master Lu!

When he is not working, he agonizes over the boy and the disgrace. He moans but is unable to resist when late at night, the boy softly pushes maps and counters off of the table and wriggles out of his pants.

Sometimes he tries to refuse. The boy starts shrinking onto himself so piteously he disrobes and stops refusing. Sometimes he tries to make excuses. The boy always finds a way that their nocturnal romps would help, and he, swayed by the reasons and his own heart, stops making excuses. If he says he is too tired, too sore from training, or sick, the boy nods understandingly and starts massaging his shoulders, neck, and back until he groans from utter lust.

He sometimes tries to explain to the boy why it is so wrong. I am your teacher. It is improper. You don't understand, but it is wrong. The boy always blinks his big soft eyes uncomprehendingly. Why? Why is it wrong? It is love, right? Love is a good thing. And I love you, Master Lu! He wants to scream. He wants to scream that there is no way that a boy can understand. That what the boy is feeling can only be a mixture of a desire to be protected and wrongly-channeled lust. That love is this, this sadness inside a man, this shame that torments him so.

Their nights take a usual and predictable course. As the lanterns slowly burn dimmer, they finish marking maps and writing letters and recommendations.

The boy always hurries over to him and plays with his ponytail. Are you ready, Master Lu?

Just give me a moment. Out of habit, he ties his evening gown in the same complicated knots he uses to tie boats to harbor. It takes him a while to loosen all of them. Meanwhile, the boy kneels by his feet, resting a head on his knee like a puppy.

Are you done yet? It's starting to get achy.

Two more to go. There. With a swish, his robe falls to the ground.

The boy rises and lays a hand on his chest, kissing his chest, his lower lip snagging on a dark brown nipple. At first, the boy was inexperienced and clumsy, but with more practice as the weeks went by, he became more confident and deliberate.

And it goes and shoots up to the peak, with him bucking into the boy and the boy's back sliding up and down his chest as he bucks as well, until they both collapse onto each other, panting and exhausted. He always slowly sits up and lowers his arms around the boy's shoulders, whispering protective words and kissing his ear.

Sometimes the boy is not sated, even if he is. But he holds out his hands anyways, as the boy lies on the floor and raises his rear. He readies his fingers and satisfies the boy.

He wanted to keep it a secret. It was shameful enough a thing to consider himself, much less, the rest of the kingdom. Naturally –who knows how?- the secret got out.

The lord has spoken to him before. The lord speaks out of concern, saying that far from him to meddle in the private lives of his men, but is the relationship truly appropriate? Wouldn't it be better to stop it, in the case that something goes wrong? And isn't he a little bit… Well, a bit too young? He always nods and agrees, and truthfully agrees, but even the Lord of the South cannot stop the sin.

He cannot even stop it himself. While writing down formations for a training exercise, he caught a faint whiff of the boy's smell. He leans over and finds the evening shirt the boy left from last night, stained with sweat and other fluids. When the lord comes into ask about the plans, he finds him without pants on the floor, grunting and rubbing the shirt on his loins, moaning and writhing as if drowned in the flames of purgatory.


End file.
